Open English Translation MARK Chapter 2

2 When Yeshua came back to Capernaum after a few days, people soon heard that he was back in the house. 2 And so many people turned up there that there wasn’t any room left—not even in the doorway. Inside, Yeshua was explaining the scriptures to them. 3 Four men arrived, carrying a paralysed man to Yeshua, 4 but because of the crowd, they were unable to get close. So they climbed up onto the flat roof, removed a section, and lowered the paralysed man lying on a pallet. 5 Yeshua, observing their faith, said to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”[fn]

6 But some of the religious teachers were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7 “Why’s that fellow talking like that? He’s seriously insulting God. There’s only one who can forgive sins, and that’s God himself.”

8 Then Yeshua, knowing in his spirit that they were reasoning like that, said to them, “Why are you thinking that to yourselves? 9 Which is easier: to tell the paralysed man that his sins have been forgiven, or to tell him to pick up his bedding and walk? 10 But so you all can see that humanity’s child does have authority here on the earth to forgive sins,” he turned and said to the paralysed man, 11 “Listen. Get up, take your bedding, and go home!”

12 So the man stood up, and picked up his bedding, and went out of the house where everyone saw him and marvelled and praised God saying, “We’ve never seen anything like that happen before!”

13 Yeshua went back out beside the lake where crowds of people kept coming to him and he taught them. 14 As he was passing by the tax office, he saw Levi Alfaeus sitting there and said to him, “Come along with me.” So Levi stood up and followed Yeshua.

15 Yeshua ended up having a meal at Levi’s place, and many other tax collectors and undesirables were sitting there also, along with Yeshua and his followers, because by then, many people were following him around. 16 When the teachers from the Pharisee party noticed that Yeshua was eating beside undesirables and tax-collectors, they asked his followers, “How come he eats with tax-collectors and other low-life?”

17 Yeshua overheard them and said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—it’s the sick ones that do. I didn’t come here to help those who think they have no needs, but I came to call sinners.”

18 Now the followers of Yohan-the-immerser, and members of the Pharisee party, regularly fasted. So a small group came to Yeshua and asked, “How come Yohan’s followers and the Pharisee party fast regularly, yet your followers don’t?”

19 And Yeshua answered, “Can the groomsmen fast when they’re celebrating along with him? No, as long as he’s still there, they won’t be fasting. 20 But in the future, the groom will be taken away from them, and then they’ll be fasting.

21 “No one sews a patch of new, unshrunken cloth onto used clothes, because the new patch will tear away from that old fabric, and it will end up with a worse tear. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskin containers, because the wine will burst the already stretched wineskins, and then both the wine and the wineskins will be destroyed. New wine must be put into new wineskins.”

23 Then it so happened that Yeshua and his followers passed through some fields of grain on some days of rest. As they went through, they plucked off some heads of grain,[ref] 24 and some members of the Pharisee party said, “Hey, it’s breaking the law to harvest grain on a rest day!”

25 “You’ve read yourselves,” Yeshua replied, “what David did when he and his men were hungry. 26 They went into God’s tent and ate the sacred bread representing God’s presence. Only the priests were allowed to eat that, and yet David even gave some to his companions!”[ref] 27 Then he told the Pharisees, “The days of rest were created for people, not people for the rest days. 28 So I, humanity’s child, have authority also over the day of rest.”